104 THE HOUSE SPARROW. 



these birds during the breeding-period, for the benefit 

 of their young. There is reason to believe that nowa- 

 days the supply exceeds the demand. This is readily 

 accounted for. Familiarity with their new home and 

 its immense wealth of vegetable productions, has 

 created in them a disgust for insects. Necessity alone 

 drives them to such fare. Their wholesale destruction 

 of the creeping caterpillar, more mobile imago, and less 

 active chrysalis, during their early occupancy of this 

 country, may be, in a great measure, attributed to the 

 scarcity of other kinds of food, or to ignorance of the 

 edible qualities of the same. 



Perceiving the beneficial effects accomplished by these 

 birds in other cities, is it at all surprising that the Phi- 

 ladelphian should see in them the saviors of vegetation, 

 and the restorers of wonted confidence and ruined pleas- 

 ure? Councils were besieged by men of influence and 

 wealth, as though Nature had forgotten us in her distri- 

 bution of avian existences, and the stupid blunder was 

 committed of introducing these proverbial enemies of 

 mankind. 



Having briefly explained the motives which led to the 

 commission of this shameful and unconsidered action, a 

 few remarks upon the propriety of so doing cannot be 

 deemed amiss. Were the sparrows needed? The condi- 

 tion of the squares and sidewalks in our large towns 

 and cities, and the gradual destruction of the trees by 

 insect pests, plainly spoke that something should be 

 done, and that speedily, to remedy the constantly grow- 

 ing evil. Repeated efforts had been made to abate the 

 nuisance. Scientific men had been appealed to, but 

 their suggestions availed nothing. No remedy seeming 

 likely to be offered, and the sparrow apparently accom- 



